Well, as you may be able to tell, I have made in to Denmark in one piece. Even though I know the real experience began once I had got off the plane in Copenhagen, the journey to get there is worthy of mention.
The day that I left Adelaide, Sunday 22 November, began well with pavlova for breakfast (made the day before by me). On the way to the airport, we made a couple of stops: one to pick up a small tin of Milo for Morten and another to help set up Dad's classroom for the next day (such a lovely family bonding moment it was). We arrived at the airport at around 9:20am, making us the first ones there by half an hour. After everyone had arrived at the airport, it was time to check in our bags. Out of the five exchangees from SA, the guys (Jake and I) had overweight bags while the girls (Rachel, Louisa and Sian) all had underweight bags, meaning that we did not have to pay for excess luggage. Once we were all checked in, we were able to have our final moments in Adelaide for a while, where I had a Farmer's Union Iced Coffee and a green frogcake. We also had a group shot of the SA exchangees before our epic journey, which is below.
It was then time to board our flight to Sydney, meaning that we had to say goodbye to our family and friends staying behind, which was inevitably sad. Before long, we were in the Boeing 737 and flying to Sydney. The flight was pleasant with a funny episode of Thank God Youu're Here along with a delightful lunch. I was sitting next to Rachel in a window seat, with Louisa and Jake directly behind us and Sian unfortnately sitting further away. Once we arrived in a 41 degree and smokey Sydney, we transferred across to the International Terminal with ease. We then met Claire, the NSW coordinator for SISEP, along with the two exchangees from NSW, Sophie and Kassie. Not long after we had arrived, we were joined by the Queenslanders going on the exchange, Brearne and Michael. We then headed towards security as the Victorians were delayed by an hour. After making our way through immigration and security, we heading for the gate and sat down though some of us went back to the duty free area to have a look around. In this time, I got to know the exchangees from other states and checked my email and Facebook. We then met up with the Victorian exchangees, Georgia, Jess and Meghann, and before long we were all boarding the Qantas plane (an Airbus A380 or in other words, a *big* plane).From here, the journey became very 'interesting'. For some reason or another, we were delayed in Sydney from taking off for an hour because of some issue with the plane. After waiting this time, we then took off and started gtracking towards Singapore. In this time, I watched a lot of Family Guy episodes, the movie Up plus a number of other TV shows. In terms of food, we had a lovely dinner and an equally wonderful supper, with a sumptuous hot chocolate filling the void in between. We were pretty much sitting near one another except for Sophie who was sitting a fair way away from us unfortunately. After almost 7 hours, we landed in Singapore, but because we were an hour late we were nervous about making our next flight which was scheduled to leave in only 10 minutes. Once we had exited the plane, an assistant was there to take us to the sales counter to get tickets for the next plane to London which happened to be on the same plane that took us from Sydney to London. Once we had organised our new tickets, which had spread the group all throughout the plane, we hurried down to the gate where we boarded the plane with plenty of time to spare. After this event, we were all relieved.
Even with the fancy features of the Qantas Airbus A380, the flight from Sydney to London was a long one. Once the plane had taken off, Jake and I (we were sitting next to one another) fell asleep and were only woke up 2 hours later when the food was coming around, or at least that was what happened with me. For the rest of the flight, I watched a considerable amount of 30 Rock along with other TV shows, slept a little, had a wonderful breakfast and another hot chocolate plus a few snacks avaliable at the self-serve snack bar. Before long, we were approaching Heathrow Airport and landed only a few moments later. From here, we said goodbye to Sian, Kassie and Meghann who are having there exchange in the UK, and started our transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5, an epic journey in itself.
After navigating many corridors, some of which were sloped, we arrived at the spot where we got the bus to Terminal 5. The ride between terminals was interesting, with long tunnels under runways and lots of planes everywhere. I also got a chance to have a photo with my animals, the cow being Boris as a gift from my Venturer Unit and the wombat being (someone suggested a name which I liked, but I've forgotten it so I'll let you know what it is when I remember) as a gift from the SA Branch. It is below.
After arriving at Terminal 5, we walked along more corridors before lining up in the immigration line. We then waited in another line which was to get to the line for security. After passing through these various queues, we made our way to the gate where some of us went to a cafe thing for some food and drinks. I got a strawberry and banana smoothie along with a pain au chocolat, which was very nice. We then boarded our final flight for the trip (except for Michael and Louisa), a British Airways flight to Copenhagen. The flight went very quickly with a strong tail wind, though the breakfast we were given was not as nice as the food given by Qantas. Apart from Georgia and Jess who were sitting further back in the plane, we were all sitting near each other which lead to many amusing moments like the stirrers. Before long, we had landed in a cloudy Copenhagen and after heading through immigration, we went to collect our bags. Unfortunately for Brearne, her bag was left in London so we had to sort something out about that before we went through customs. I realised at the customs point just how much more stricter Australian quarantine is; most of us had nuts in our bag but we did not have to show them. After going through customs, we met our host families. For me, this was a simple reunion with Jakob while for some, this was meeting them for the first time. From here, I said my goodbyes to the other exchangees who went off with their families and headed outside to the car. Bracing for absolutely freezing conditions, I was pleasantly suprised as the temperature was around that of the colder days in Stirling, which I could handle. We then got into the car and started our 2 hour journey from the airport in Copenhagen to Norre Aaby, where Jakob and his family live. On the way, I saw many wind turbines and lovely countryside, along with travelling across the bridge connecting Zealand and Funen which was very, very big. We then got to Norre Aaby (on the other side of Denmark) and I settled in with a hot shower. Then at around 4:30pm, I went to have a bit of a lie down and then woke up 14 hours later this morning at 6:30am.
I am currently enjoying my first day at school, but that is for another blog entry.
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